Inhibitions
by CarsAndTelephones
Summary: An away team discovers that they have been poisoned when they travel to the surface of an uncharted planet and it's up to McCoy to save the day.
1. Part I

_Author's note— This particular story is based on the TOS episode "The Naked Time" (Honestly--Most. Deceptive. Title. Ever. It's not "theeeeee NAKED TIME!" It's "The. Naked. Time." Give it a chance. I swear it's good.) where the crew become infected with a poison found on a planet they have been exploring. This particular poison removes their inhibitions. I wanted to play around with the NuTrek crew's reactions to this poison in contrast to their TOS counterparts. Particularly Kirk--Shatner!Kirk is different than Pine!Kirk. Also, I wanted something lighthearted since my other fic, Remnants, is…well, kind of a downer :) Anyway, please read and review! This will be in two parts…_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Spock, Kirk, McCoy (--Yeah, Team Awesome!), or Star Trek in general._

**Inhibitions--Part I  
**

"Doctor McCoy!"

Chekov waved wildly with a hand.

"Doctor McCoy!" he called again, louder.

"Heard you the first time," McCoy grumbled under his breath looking up from his work collecting plant samples. Honestly, the kid sometimes acted like an over-eager four-year-old when it came to visiting new places.

"Don't wet yourself, kid, I'm coming," he said, taking his time to stand up and dust off the knees of his Starfleet issue uniform. "Now what is it?"

Chekov looked excited. Which wasn't something new. The kid always looked excited even when Kirk asked him to do something like calculate the area of the second largest space amoeba in existence or find the gravitational pull of Spock's ego on the moon or whatever the hell else the captain felt he needed to know at that exact moment in time. So it was without curiosity or enthusiasm that McCoy made his way over to Chekov to investigate the source of his glee.

"Sir!" Chekov exclaimed as McCoy drew nearer, "Sir! These plants—zey are amazing, sir! Zey seem to have powerful defense mechanisms where zey—"

"—Release a toxin that paralyzes the nervous system of small beings they come in contact with? Yes, Mr. Chekov I did. You see _I_ have been doing my job for the past hour whereas you and the rest of the away team seems to have run amok on this God-forsaken rock. Where have you been, anyway? And how in the hell did you discover those plants could poison you without the proper instrumentation? You didn't stick your hand down the goddamn flower, did you?" McCoy finished in exasperation.

Chekov looked a bit abashed. "No, of course not sir," he said hastily stowing a rapidly swelling hand behind his back.

"Oh, for God's sake," said McCoy grabbing the Ensign's puffy arm and pulling him forward. He forced Chekov down onto a nearby rock. "What's gotten into you? Common sense, Mr. Chekov! It's not difficult!"

"Ze plant looked nice, sir," Chekov explained simply, "I just wanted to see it closer."

"Sticking your hand into a foreign object just because it '_looked nice'_?" McCoy scolded in disbelief as he pulled out his medical equipment and examined Chekov's bloated hand. "Space," he muttered more to himself than Chekov, "Blasted foreign contaminants around every blasted corner and a captain who doesn't have the blasted sense to stay away from it all. Where is the rest of the away team anyway?"

"Ower zat hill zere," Chekov said indicating with his good hand where the other four members of the landing party must have been waiting. McCoy glanced in the direction of the hill, but declined the impulse to go round up the rest of the away team before they found trouble (particularly Jim), and turned his full attention to the Ensign's hand. He was in the process of taking out his tricorder when Chekov suddenly intervened.

"I kan do zat, sir, if you think it would be easier," he said.

McCoy stared at him for a second, keeping a firm grip on the tricorder which Chekov had just tried to grab. "If I'm not mistaken, Chekov, _I'm_ the one with a medical degree here, not you. So no, I _don't_ think it would be easier. Now sit back and let me do my job."

Chekov's eyes widened but he complied. McCoy glared at him for a second, but Chekov didn't protest any more. Perhaps the plant poison in Chekov's blood was clouding his judgement—he had never tried to cross paths with the doctor before. Satisfied for the moment, however, McCoy set to work scanning Chekov's arm while Chekov fidgeted.

"You know, sir," Chekov began again, "It would actually be more efficient if you—"

"That does it, Mr. Chekov!" McCoy jumped up, "I'm a doctor, not a tactician—fixing people up is what I do, but if you think you can do it better, then go ahead! Be my guest!"

"Actually sir, I think I kan do it better!" Chekov answered brightly snatching the tricorder from McCoy.

This brash answer, however, was not the response that McCoy had been expecting. He had expected the normally shy Ensign to hang his head, apologize and let McCoy scan his injured arm without complaint as per usual, but Chekov seemed to have other ideas. He was in the process of attempting to scan his own arm, but he held the medical scanner upside-down and he was having difficulty taking readings. McCoy wavered, trying to choose between acting upon amusement, shock, or anger. Finally he settled upon anger—also as per usual—but Chekov spoke before McCoy could succumb to the impulse to throttle his young counterpart.

"See, sir? It is obwiously more efficient for me to do the exam. I kan be a doctor, too!" He said it with such naïve enthusiasm that McCoy forgot for a moment to be angry. Instead he became intrigued. Chekov was normally enthusiastic, but this level was new even for him. He usually stuck to his job as a tactician officer and while he did it incredibly well, he never strayed into others' areas of expertise with this sort of fervor. He always wanted to impress people, McCoy had observed, but it had never come to the point where he stole other people's tricorders before. Something was seriously wrong.

"Chekov," McCoy said, inflating his chest and using his most commanding tone of voice, "You are not a doctor. But lucky for you _I_ am, so why don't you just give me that tricorder and sit back, all right?"

But McCoy didn't wait for Chekov to hand him the tricorder; he wrestled it from the younger man's hands and placed a hand on his shoulder to restrain him. "Now," McCoy said firmly, "Here's what you are going to do. You are going to let me examine you and then you're going to let me treat you. Without a fuss. Can you do that, Mr. Chekov? Can you do that, _please?_"

McCoy didn't wait for an answer but simply started to scan Chekov again—this time taking readings from his entire body rather than just his arm. Chekov looked meek for a grand total of about three seconds, and then started fidgeting again.

"But, sir—"

Chekov didn't get any further. "No!" McCoy scolded, "No buts! You are _my _patient, and I am _your _doctor. And as your doctor, I reserve the right to sedate your ass when you annoy me. So I _strongly_ suggest that you—"

"But sir!" Chekov interrupted, "I kan do zat!"

"Can do what, annoy the crap out of me? Why yes, I think you've proved that—_multiple_ times actually, so--SIT DOWN."

Chekov had gotten up and made a grab for the tricorder again. McCoy caught the Ensign's good arm and rammed him back onto the rock upon which he had been sitting. He regarded the fussing Ensign for a few moments, carefully holding his tricorder out of reach.

"What in the hell is wrong with you?"

McCoy kept a restraining hand on the Ensign while he looked at the readings from the tricorder in his other hand. The only irregularity seemed to be coming from the small dose of plant poison in Chekov's right arm, but McCoy had checked the properties of the poison before this little incident and had determined that it was non-lethal to humans. This fact, however, did not mean that Chekov couldn't be experiencing some sort of bizarre side effect. The answer to this problem was clear: they had to call the planet exploration mission short and head back to the Enterprise. Jim wouldn't be happy about it, but quite frankly McCoy didn't care. Chekov wasn't a threat particularly, but there was clearly something wrong with him and McCoy did not have adequate medical supplies on planet to take care of the issue. He would be a lot more comfortable if they were safe back on board their ship with all the proper instrumentation.

But the only way they could get back to the Enterprise was all together by shuttlecraft. Something in the planet's atmosphere interfered with the Enterprise's instruments and a very worried Scotty had been hesitant to let the away team beam down to the surface. Instead, much to McCoy's dismay, they had flown down. Chekov, McCoy remembered, wasn't even supposed to have been on the mission. He had requested (more like begged) that the captain let him accompany them to the surface since he "newwer got to get off the ship."

Turning his full attention back to the Ensign, McCoy pulled out his communicator with difficulty. Chekov was apparently feeling fidgety again and kept making random grabs for the tricorder.

"McCoy to the Captain," McCoy said into the communicator.

Nothing but silence greeted him.

"McCoy to Kirk," McCoy tried again.

Still nothing.

McCoy tried to fight back a growing feeling of unease. Jim was probably busy sightseeing and wasn't paying attention to his communicator. It was nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.

McCoy decided to try Mr. Spock. If Spock didn't answer, then McCoy was sure something was wrong.

"McCoy to Spock."

Silence.

"Where did you say the rest of them were?" McCoy shot at Chekov.

Chekov stopped fidgeting abruptly and stared at McCoy as if Christmas had come early. "I know where zey are! Zey are ower zat hill! I kan show you if you like!"

"Sure, knock yourself out," McCoy grumbled and followed as Chekov jumped up and blazed a trail over the nearby hill.

Whatever McCoy had been expecting when he crested the hill, it wasn't what he saw. He froze momentarily in shock as he took in the bizarre scene below him.

The rest of the away team—except for Jim who was quite noticeably absent—was on the shore of a small lake. Lieutenant O'Reilly, a science officer, appeared to be serenading the other two unaware crewmembers with an Irish drinking song—a badly sung Irish drinking song, McCoy noted, screwing up his face against the noise. Sulu, completely oblivious to O'Reilly had his shirt off and his sword out, swinging it around and around in some sort of relentless dance. And Spock, oddest of all, sat sprawled out—_Vulcans _never_ sprawl,_ McCoy thought_—_on the shore, gazing into the distance absentmindedly. All of them were soaking wet.

"Zere zey are, sir!" Chekov pointed out unnecessarily. He then set off down the hill to join O'Reilly in his song, all the time insisting that he knew a Russian one that was better.

"What the hell...?" McCoy finally managed weakly.

Recovering himself, McCoy set off down the hill after Chekov at a trot making his way toward Spock.

"Spock!" McCoy called out as he approached. Spock did not appear to have heard.

"Spock!" McCoy repeated, coming up and bending down next to the absently staring Vulcan. "What's wrong? What's happened?" McCoy took out his tricorder once again and began scanning without preamble.

Spock did not even acknowledge his presence at first but once McCoy started scanning him, he looked over at the doctor with an expression of deepest sadness in his dark eyes. The appearance of such raw emotion in the otherwise cold first officer startled McCoy even after all the other odd things he had seen that day. _Something is seriously wrong_, McCoy thought for about the hundredth time._ The iceberg is showing emotion_.

"Spock, are you all right?" McCoy asked gently.

"I—" Spock faltered. _He_ _faltered?_ McCoy thought in shock. "I am… conflicted" Much to McCoy's disbelief a tear rolled down Spock's cheek sliding across his already soaking skin. "All those years," he murmured, "all those years as a child and I could never tell my mother that I loved her… And now I never can."

If McCoy had been anyone else, his mouth would have dropped open. Instead, he set his jaw, determined.

"Spock," he began, "I need you to focus. It appears you and the rest of the away team have been poisoned. Do you know how it happened? Did you come into contact with the plants in any way?" McCoy already had a half formed hypothesis brewing in his mind after the incident with Chekov.

Spock appeared be pulling himself back from some far away place with tremendous effort. His eyes fully focused on McCoy for the first time. "I am uncertain," he replied. "My recollections seem to be vague at best. I--" For a second, Spock's eyes faded back into heartbreaking sadness, but when he blinked the sadness was gone as if it had never been, "—I can, however, be quite certain that I did not touch the plant life that would cause injury."

"You didn't touch those plants with the giant blue flowers?"

Spock shook his head minutely once.

"You didn't brush up against them accidentally?"

Spock shook his head again.

"How would you know if you didn't _accidentally_ brush up against them?" McCoy grumbled, more to himself than to Spock, but the readings his tricorder fed him confirmed Spock's conclusion. The tricorder had not picked up even the smallest trace of the plant's poison in Spock's blood. In fact, the tricorder was not picking up anything wrong with Spock at all—aside from the elevated heart rate and ridiculously high blood pressure but that was only due to Spock's Vulcan heritage. "Damn space diseases," McCoy muttered, again to himself. "Can't pick up a damn thing… Wait a second." McCoy paused, staring at Spock, "Why are you all wet?"

Spock stared down at his sopping uniform as if noticing it for the first time. He squinted slightly, his eyebrows furrowing the barest amount. "Lieutenant O'Reilly lost his balance," he began, "He fell into the lake. Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Sulu and I attempted to pull him out, but the bank gave in, ultimately immersing us as well."

"And it was after that that you started feeling odd?"

"I believe so, Doctor." Spock replied, "My recollections, however, are unsatisfactory. I cannot recall much beyond—" he broke off and his face clouded with genuine heartbreak once again.

"Spock!" McCoy cried, trying to force the Vulcan back into the present, "Spock, you can't pay attention to these memories—they're a reaction to… well, whatever this poison is. If you listen to them, you'll drive yourself crazy! Just focus on me—focus on this problem right now and you'll be all right. I think it's the water that's doing it—it was the water all along--"

But McCoy's thoughts were interrupted rather abruptly as O'Reilly began a particularly rousing chorus of "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen." McCoy, his temper ever close to the boiling point, snapped.

"That's it!" he shouted, jumping up, "If I hear one more rendition of whatever the hell it is you're singing, O'Reilly, I'll be completely justified in knocking you out with a sedative so strong you'll wake up next _month_ without a clue of what happened. Now you are _all_ to go back to the shuttle _immediately_ and we're going back to the Enterprise!"

Spock, O'Reilly, Sulu and Chekov (who had both come over to investigate the source of commotion) all stared at the fuming McCoy blankly. McCoy glared at them all for another few seconds before he realized that he had forgotten something.

"Wait a second," he said, worry tingeing his expression "Where the hell is Jim?"

Spock, O'Reilly, Sulu and Chekov exchanged puzzled glances as if noticing for the first time that Jim had gone missing. Spock answered him first. "The captain, I believe, saw something that required his investigation," he explained simply.

"And you didn't go _with_ him?" McCoy yelped, "Spock, the man's a walking disaster factory! We gotta find him--we gotta find him _now._"

And with that, McCoy snatched up his tricorder once again and stumbled backward in a desperate attempt to find Jim before he did something stupid. From McCoy's observations the poison appeared to bring hidden personality traits to the surface. If Jim had been poisoned (and McCoy was sure that he had), then McCoy could be sure with dreadful certainty that the already reckless captain would become a downright danger to himself.

Unfortunately McCoy was so desperate to find his friend that he misjudged his proximity to the poisoned lake stationed behind him. He stepped backward, slipped on the steep bank, and fell in with an almighty crash sending his tricorder and medical equipment flying in all directions.

The four left on the bank stared at the place where McCoy had disappeared beneath the surface.

"You know what his problem is?" O'Reilly said to no one in particular, "He wasn't born an Irishman."


	2. Part II

_Author's note—Annnnd finally, here's part II. I lied though. This will be in THREE parts. I didn't realize how long this was getting. Next part to be posted NEXT TUESDAY I promise. Sorry for the long gap between this and the first part. Technical difficulties and school intervened. Hope you enjoy. As always, please read and review! Constructive criticism is more than welcome._

**Inhibitions--Part II**

McCoy clawed his way to the surface of the lake, immediately spraying a stream of water mixed with the filthiest swear words he could think of from his mouth once he drew in enough air to do so. Splattering water all over the place, he thrashed his way to the bank none too gracefully and pulled himself out with all the desperation of a cat that had just taken a highly unexpected shower. He crouched on the mercifully dry land for a few seconds, shivering and clenching his jaw, processing the implications of what had just happened.

Poisoned. He had just been poisoned. He probably only had a limited amount of time before the effects of the water started kicking in, so whatever he wanted to do, he should do it and do it fast. And what he needed to do was get everyone back to the Enterprise.

With that thought, he leapt up (in a vague sense of the word—it was rather hard to leap when his sodden clothes were weighing him down), and looked around for the rest of the away team—for the four of them seemed to have lost interest in his predicament as soon as he had disappeared beneath the surface of the lake. Spock had wandered some distance off, and stood staring wistfully into the distance. Chekov sat on the bank dangling his now bare feet off the ledge and chuckling to himself as he threw pebbles into the water with his one good arm watching happily as the ripples spread across the stagnant surface. O'Reilly was busy caterwauling about the Irish again. Sulu had his sword back out, sticking his tongue between his teeth as he carved a large spiky letter "S" into a nearby tree.

McCoy struggled to contain his anger. _Damned fine crew of the Enterprise this is, _he thought. Trying to master himself, he took a deep breath and set about salvaging the scant medical supplies that had landed on dry ground instead of the depths of the lake. McCoy wondered grouchily as he fished his fried tricorder out of the shallows how after thousands of years of medical advancement, the world still had not yet learned how to make waterproof equipment. At least the hyposprays would still work, he thought ruefully, not that they'd do any good when he had no idea what the poison currently infecting his bloodstream was let alone how to cure it. He tucked three salvaged sedative canisters into his belt and tossed the dead tricorder aside muttering about technology and everyone being better off without it. He grouchily clambered to his feet, thinking that he might as well round everyone up before things got much worse.

But he stood up rather too quickly and the world tipped momentarily in front of his vision. He stumbled, his hand to his head.

_Woah,_ he thought.

Suddenly, the ground around him seemed a bit less solid. He looked around woozily, attempting to get his bearings only to sit down hard on the grassy bank, bracing himself with his hands. He sat for a moment, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Everything had gone a bit fuzzy in his memory. He couldn't remember why he was there, for instance, on the shore of a lake on a foreign planet surrounded by flowers as big as his head (that he vaguely didn't trust). He didn't know how exactly he had become sopping wet but he had the inkling that it had something to do with the lake. And he didn't have a clue as to why the rest of the crew around him seemed to have gone completely insane.

Why, for example, did Mr. Chekov have his shoes off when it was quite obvious that foreign contaminants could _easily_ come into contact through his bare skin? _I mean does the kid have a death wish?_ McCoy thought incredulously to himself, on the point of rising to grab the ensign's boots and beat him with them until he agreed to put them on—until he realized with a jolt that he himself was coveredwith foreign contaminants from the wet uniform he was now soaking in. Staring at his hands, which had been buried in the grass moments before, he suddenly felt tainted.

"Gah!" he shouted, jumping to his feet and wiping his hands on his uniform. "Gah!" he shouted again when he remembered that his uniform was contaminated as well. He immediately began stripping off his wet clothes and was halfway through taking off his black undershirt when a small sense of reality (probably borne from his unwillingness to strip naked in front of people who looked at him with at least some respect) wormed its way into the back of his mind. McCoy pulled his shirt back on abruptly and looked around, trying to ascertain if anyone had seen his momentary panic.

It appeared that they hadn't, however, as they were all currently engaged in staring down the long stretch of the bank at some mysterious object in the distance.

Curiosity sparked, McCoy took a few steps forward (careful not to touch his hands to anything more than necessary) to join Spock. At the other end of the lake, a little black and yellow figure had emerged from the thick of the trees of the forested shore at top speed. It appeared to be waving its arms and shouting as it sprinted down the bank in a state of great distress. Vaguely intrigued, McCoy leaned forward, squinting.

"What the—" he muttered.

He and Spock stood side by side, watching intently as the figure came closer and closer. As it rounded the long edge of the bank, McCoy realized that he knew this figure. And he knew that this figure was trouble. This figure was dangerous. This figure was reckless and brilliant and absolutely, certifiably, one-hundred-percent insane. This figure was James T. Kirk.

McCoy barely had enough time to wonder why it was that Jim was running so fast in their direction when he was there in front of them, breathing hard and grinning ear to ear.

"Hey!" Jim wheezed, almost bowling Spock and McCoy over as he skidded to a halt, mud spraying everywhere. "Hey! We gotta get outta here—C'mon—No time to explain, let's go!" He himself was already covered in splotchy bits of some foul smelling substance from head to foot.

"Captain," Spock said, apparently pulling himself out of a daydream, "May I inquire as to—"

"Nope!" Jim looked gleeful. "Let's go!"

"But Jim—" said McCoy reproachfully, but his half formulated reprimand never had the chance to leave his tongue as Sulu looked up from his tree carving to join them.

"Where are we going? Is it a Quest?" He shouted, waving his sword up and almost taking O'Reilly's head off. "Aye! Avast! Let us be off! I'll lead the way!" And with that, Sulu took off into the trees, O'Reilly and Chekov hot on his heels, Chekov's swollen arm flapping uselessly at his side. They were gone before McCoy could even open his mouth to issue a warning about humidity and the cultivation of germs. Jim started off after them until he realized after a few steps that two of his friends had not yet joined him. He looked back questioningly.

"Well?" he said, "Aren't you coming?"

Spock and McCoy exchanged one of their very rare glances with each other. McCoy planted his feet firmly on the ground and crossed his arms over his broad chest. "Jim, if you think I'm letting you go anywhere _near_ those goddamned trees or all those goddamned monster flowers and all the goddamned alien _spores_ in that forest without a _damned _good reason, you're psychotic."

Spock, to McCoy's hazy surprise through his germ-phobic stupor, nodded in agreement. "I, too, must agree with the Doctor, Captain," he said, "If we are to leave the relative tranquility of this spot, I require an explanation."

"And there are _spores_, dammit, _spores!_" McCoy added, incredulous that the other two had not grasped the gravity of this statement. Jim and Spock didn't seem to notice.

"I believe you have induced a panic due to a poison currently infecting all of our blood streams and your logic is not completely sound," Spock continued as if McCoy had not said anything at all.

McCoy glanced at Spock in shock. "We've been poisoned?" he said, his mouth twisting into a frown as vague memories and impressions of a wide-eyed Chekov and a melancholy Spock flashed past his consciousness, as well as the image of he himself falling into the falsely innocent lake. "I knew it. Disgusting."

"Yes, Doctor, you informed me of this fact yourself not ten minutes ago," Spock shot back before they both turned their attention back to Jim. "Nevertheless, Captain, I require clarification of your motives before we move from this spot."

"And I require you get a good bath, Jim. You're probably covered in those spores. And you stink to high heaven," McCoy muttered.

"That statement is illogical, Doctor, as one cannot stink in a measure of height."

"It was an expression, Spock."

The two of them once again stared at Jim.

"Fine," Jim said, approaching them cockily, a slight smile on his face, "You wanted a reason? Is that one good enough?" He nodded to a spot behind them on the far bank.

McCoy turned and saw not one, but four very good reasons to run into the spore-infested forest without another question. And those four reasons all lay in the four long legs of the creature that had burst from the forest with a furious roar that now resounded across the stagnant water and reverberated in McCoy's eardrums. And McCoy suddenly knew in one earth-shattering stroke why Jim had been running to reach them in the first place.

The first thought that McCoy had was that the creature resembled some sort of sick cross between a panther and a gorilla albeit with one with mangy green hair. His second was that the creature probably had all sorts of disgusting space diseases and contact with it should be avoided at all costs. His third thought, followed closely on the heels of the second, was that if contact were to be avoided, they should start running fast because the thing was headed their way.

"Okay, _now_ we can get going, yeah?" said Jim, apparently thinking the same thing. He backed swiftly away, dragging Spock and McCoy with him as he went by their elbows.

And with that, Jim practically dove into the forest where Sulu, O'Reilly, and Chekov had disappeared minutes before. Spock followed at a slightly more dignified pace, but McCoy wavered. Trapped between his disgust for disease infested jungles and disease infested creatures, he stood indecisive on the bank for a moment, looking back and forth between two bad alternatives. Swallowing his repulsion, he finally chose the option that didn't have claws and ran into the forest after his friends. _Some_one had to look after them, after all. And when it came down to it, McCoy preferred not to die by alien gorilla-cat.

McCoy caught up to Jim and Spock as fast as he could, avoiding at all costs any contact with the plant life that surrounded him everywhere he turned. Dodging out of the way of a lethal looking blue flower, McCoy pounded after his two friends.

"How did you—" McCoy gasped once he caught up, "manage to—piss off—this creature—anyway?"

"Eh," Jim said over his shoulder as he whipped aside a leafy tendril hanging over his path, "I poked it with a stick. No big deal."

"Poked—" McCoy spluttered, dancing to the side of yet another barbed branch, "Why, in God's name, _why_ would you _poke it with a stick?_"

Jim shot him a disbelieving look and nearly clotheslined himself on a low hanging vine. "Because it was there."

"Captain," said Spock, speaking for the first time, "That was a highly illogical action and most unwise."

"What can I say, Spock, I'm a highly illogical guy."

"That much is obvious. All the same, you should have considered not only your own life, but the lives of your crewmembers as well." Spock's tone might have been considered scolding if he hadn't been a Vulcan.

"Look, I _tried_ to lead it away from you guys, but I got all turned around. Don't worry though, I'll fix it."

"And how—exactly—do you plan—on doing—that?" McCoy gasped clutching a stitch in his side as they ran up a slope. They came to a halt at the crest of the hill in the confines of a small meadow. "We don't even have the whole away team together anymore," he puffed, hands on knees. "We'll never get off this cursed rock, and we'll all die horrible deaths from space disease and _spores_ if we're not killed by your monster friend first."

"Try not to be so optimistic there, Bones." Jim smiled wryly. "Relax, we'll be fine."

As he said it, the creature roared in the distance. McCoy glared at his friend. "'Fine'. Is that your word for 'chewed up into tiny bits'?"

Jim only laughed. "Relax," he said again, "It's not even close to us anymore."

As he said it, they looked over the canopy of the forest and saw the trees in a nearby sector swaying as if shoved bodily from underneath. Indeed, the swaying bypassed their hilltop, leading around it instead. The creature, whatever it was, had lost their trail.

"Captain," Spock said placidly, "Now that we have rid ourselves of the alien presence, I suggest that we ascertain the location of Lieutenants O'Reilly and Sulu and Ensign Chekov as they are not in any fit state to be alone because of the poison."

"Wait a second, wait a second," interrupted McCoy grouchily, distracting himself from the ever nagging fear of germs that plagued his mind, "If _I'm_ poisoned, and Jim is _most definitely_ poisoned, then how come _you _don't seem to be showing any symptoms of this thing, Spock?" McCoy, though his recollections were fuzzy at best, could clearly remember the effects that the poison seemed to be having on his colleagues. And it was plain from Kirk's recent escapades that he had reacted most strongly of all of them to the toxin in his bloodstream. Of course, McCoy reflected, Jim never did anything by halves.

Spock considered McCoy's question, withdrawing into his own thoughts for a moment and a flash of utmost sadness contorted his features for a split second until he smoothed his expression over once more. "I am affected, Doctor. I choose, however, to purge the intruding thoughts and impulsions from my consciousness. While humans do not have this ability as they are emotion driven, the Vulcans have been long trained in this art."

"Oh, the Vulcans have been trained," McCoy mocked under his breath, but he was secretly jealous of Spock's ability as he slapped away a bug that had alit on his arm, suddenly afraid that he had contracted a horrible illness from it and would die a slow and painful death lasting for several months and ending in a funeral where his ex-wife danced on his grave throwing multicolored carnation petals in the air.

"Oh look, there's the rest of them," Jim commented lightly pulling McCoy back to the present. Indeed, they turned to see the three men, Sulu in the lead, in front of an exhausted O'Reilly and an exhilarated Chekov charging their way up the hill.

"There you lot are!" Sulu shouted, not even the least bit winded. He brandished his sword as he reached the three atop the hill. O'Reilly and Chekov followed close behind, clutching their sides and breathing hard. "I was beginning to think that something happened to you! But never fear! I'll protect you!" He proceeded to swing his sword around and around—further endangering their lives by the proximity of his weapon to everyone else's vital organs. Spock and Jim backed up hastily as McCoy watched Sulu warily.

"Who are you—d'Artagnan? Put that thing away before you take someone's eye out," he growled.

"Woah, he just went all French Literature on your ass," Jim snorted to Sulu.

"I'm serious!" McCoy shouted, "Now put it away before I _make _you put it away!" McCoy brandished the only weapon he had—the sedative hypospray—in as threatening a manner as he could muster. Sulu looked unimpressed.

"If you wanna sedate me, you're gonna have to get near me," he teased. "I'm protecting you all! And I'm not gonna put it down!" Somewhere in the back of McCoy's deluded brain, his mind slipped into medical gear. Sulu had progressed even further into his delusions than even Jim. He was becoming a danger to those around him and to himself.

Jim seemed to have picked up on this, however, as he eyed Sulu skeptically. "Dude, you don't even know what you're protecting us _from._"

"Sure I do," Sulu said assuredly, "The forces of evil."

Jim, McCoy, O'Reilly, and Chekov stared at the deluded Sulu for a full thirty seconds. Spock tilted his head. "No, Mr. Sulu," he observed, "I believe you were attempting to protect us from _that_."

They turned, and from the shadows of the forest they could just make out the glint of a pair of two yellow eyes framed by a mass of matted green hair. The thing had found them at last.

_To be concluded....._


	3. Part III

_Author's note—Here it is! The conclusion! Wahoo! Thanks to those of you that stuck with me on this one—especially to NEWSPAPER TAXIS! Thank you!!--I know it took me a ridiculous amount of time to finish. And thanks once again for all the reviews—you all made it a lot more fun to write this piece, which was pretty fun to write to begin with :) Anyway, there's lots of slapstick in this chapter. Yes. I have the sense of humor of a seven-year-old boy. But that's all from my end! I hope this doesn't disappoint! Read and enjoy!_

_**Edit:**__I cleaned this up a bit this morning--I realized upon a reread that some things were rather choppy because I finished this at like 2 AM and I'm never coherent at that hour. It should flow better now, at any rate.  
_

**Inhibitions—Part III**

The six of them stood frozen at the crest of the hill. The creature stared at them.

They stared back at the creature.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Sulu, high on adrenaline and brimming with poison-induced overconfidence, did one of the most foolhardy things he had ever done in his short life. Sword in hand, he leapt forward and swung the weapon threateningly in circles before shouting over his shoulder with reckless bravado, "Never fear, comrades! I'll bring this piece of slime down with one sweep! Ha!"

But the creature had different ideas. With a blood-curdling screech that sounded simultaneously like a cougar and a fork in a blender, it charged out of the thick of the trees gaining speed and momentum with each awkward lollop.

McCoy heard a muttered "aw, shit," from Jim behind him before several things happened at once of which he had only the vaguest impression of. He heard a yell that might have been Sulu or a teenage girl, he couldn't tell which, saw a flash of silver flying through the air, and felt something close around his arm in a vice-like grip before he was being pulled—almost dragged—quickly backward across the clearing and into the forest once more. He had the confused impression of trees flashing past, a collage of brown and green blurring in his vision.

"Shit, Bones, get your legs under you, I can't carry you this whole way!" Jim's voice sounded from somewhere above him after about a minute of the drag-run. McCoy tried to gather his senses and run at the same time but only managed to careen head long into a shrub that had somehow sprung up in his path without him seeing it.

"Auugh!" he yelled, trying to sprint and brush leaves off his uniform at the same time, which proved difficult as Jim still had one of his arms in his possession. "Dammit, Jim! Do you know how many cuts I could have gotten from that plant? And how many of those cuts could have gotten infected? And how many germs I could have been exposed to? I could have _died, _Jim. _Died!"_

"Bones," Jim said as nonchalantly as he could while panting for breath, "You're the only person I know who freaks out about losing their life 'cause of a bush when they're being chased by a giant fanged monster."

McCoy was about to answer with a stinging retort, but they rounded a bend and ran full speed into another body. The three of them went sprawling head first into the muddy ground in front of them, crashing through the underbrush to the soggy earth beneath. McCoy levered himself up as soon as was physically possible, gasping and coughing and trying (but failing) not to think about what he had just ingested from the swampy forest floor. Looking around from his spot on the ground, he saw not only Jim, whom he had thought to be his only partner in the desperate forest trek, but also a very flustered (and dirty) Hikaru Sulu.

"Captain?"

"Sulu!"

"_Sulu?!"_

"Doctor!"

A moment or so of confused untangling of limbs ensued before McCoy fully extricated himself from the heap of tangled bodies. He leapt up and stared at the remaining two in the mud in frantic worry. "Get up, get up, you imbeciles!" But he didn't wait for them to comply. Grabbing Jim bodily under the arms and pulling him out of the mud, he shouted frantically, "Don't you know how many things could be _living_ in that muck?"

Sulu quickly jumped to his feet, staring at the ground warily, but Jim had yet to look concerned.

"There you go again!" he said, "Giant fanged monster, Bones—number one priority right now."

McCoy rounded on his friend. "Look," he rumbled, "I don't see any giant fanged monster, so my number one priority is to keep _you_ idiots safe—and that means keeping you alive, and _that_ means not letting you get infested by whatever might be living in this God-forsaken forest. So I would appreciate it if you would quit playing in the mud and focus on the problem—which is getting us out of here and _cleaned up,_" McCoy finished with a ferocious glare at the two of them. "Wait a second though," he added as an afterthought, "Where's the rest of them? What happened?"

Jim fixed him with an intensely blue stare. "We had to split up," he explained, "Spock, O'Reilly and Chekov took off in one direction and I grabbed you and went in the other. I think the creature got confused because it couldn't seem to decide who to follow. I guess it went after Spock and them though, because if not we'd still be running." For the first time, he looked worried.

"Wait, Sulu, what happened to you?" McCoy asked. "Last thing I saw you were waving your sword around like a damned fool and then that thing charged us."

For some reason, Sulu seemed suddenly uncomfortable. He shifted on his feet and avoided McCoy's gaze while muttering something about claws and fur. Jim snorted and intervened. "Sulu, erm, tried to take on the creature, but it bent his sword in half and then he went tearing off into the forest. Never seen anyone move that fast," Jim reflected with an air of one commenting on the weather. "I just gotta say this, though, Sulu." He paused as if considering his next words carefully. "You scream like a _girl._" With that, Jim burst into uncontrollable snickers, earning a reproachful glare from Sulu.

"It's not funny, _Sir_," Sulu said sulkily. He had his arms crossed over his chest and stood with his shoulders hunched.

With all respect to Jim, he made a valiant effort to school his features into a look of utter solemnity, but after a few seconds he dissolved into helpless giggles once more. "Sorry, but it's a little funny," he said losing it completely.

"Quit being such a juvenile," McCoy said, slapping Jim on the back of the head. He instantly regretted this action, however, when he remembered that Jim's head had been places he didn't even want to know, not to mention it had just been covered in a fresh coat of alien mud probably filled to the brim with spores or parasites or something equally distasteful. He made a mental note to keep a sharp eye on the state of Jim's head to make sure it wasn't sprouting anything abnormal when they got back to the ship.

"Shouldn't we be focusing on helping the others?" Sulu said loudly over Jim's continued guffaws.

It was almost frightening how quickly Jim's mood snapped from jubilant to serious in a matter of a second. "Right," he said, suddenly in captain mode once again. "We have to go find them—and that creature thing before anyone gets hurt."

Once again, they set off at a run, Jim in the lead in the opposite direction that they had been going in.

McCoy struggled to keep up with Jim's pace. "So," he puffed, avoiding a flowery plant draped over his path like a rug, "What _exactly_ is your plan for getting rid of this creature?"

Jim and Sulu exchanged a glance. "Well," he said, "I was thinking… just wing it?"

"Wing it?" McCoy repeated incredulously.

"Yep. Wing it."

Sulu nodded enthusiastically between strides as if determined to prove his damaged manhood. "Sounds good to me, Sir."

"No!" McCoy rebuked, stumbling on a protruding root, "No, it does _not _sound good! In fact it sounds very bad!"

"C'mon," Jim said, shooting McCoy his most charming grin, "It'll be fun!"

"Fun," McCoy repeated as sardonically as he could while gasping for air, "Fun like it is to be mauled by a tiger?"

Jim and Sulu only laughed.

_Oh, how I hate the sound of that laugh,_ McCoy thought bitterly to himself as they crashed through a thicket of dark purple ferns sending a cloud of spores flying everywhere. McCoy fought the urge to gag and dance on the spot as he tried to beat the spores off his own uniform as well as the retreating backs of his two crewmembers.

Mastering himself, he decided to try again with his reckless captain. "I don't have to mention that this creature has claws right?"

"Uh," Jim said, still running, "I have become aware of it, Bones."

"And probably about a hundred diseases?"

"You _might_ have mentioned something about it…"

"Not to mention that if you get too close to that _thing_ it might result in a mild case of, oh I don't know, _death?_" McCoy finished sarcastically.

"Geez, you're snarky today, aren't you?" Jim commented over his shoulder. McCoy seethed to himself mainly because he didn't have the breath to add anything else.

Sulu, who had gained the lead, suddenly stopped and the remaining two crashed into his back, almost sending them sprawling yet again. The helmsman held up his hand for silence and pointed. They had come to the edge of the forest. In the grassy space in front of them stood their shuttle, gray and box-shaped and mercifully, _mercifully_ clean.

Unfortunately, directly in front of their haven stood the creature, huge, and green, and ugly. It snuffled about the base of the shuttle nonchalantly, picking its way to a spot directly in front of the engines and flopping down with an all-mighty sigh that sent the grass blowing all around it.

"Perfect," McCoy said in undertones crouched in the shade, "Just perfect. Of all the places to pick for a nap, it chooses the one place we need to be. And it's probably infesting it too."

"Oh come on," Jim whispered. "This is a challenge!"

"It's a Quest!" Sulu added.

Jim and McCoy stared at him, eyebrows raised.

"Right," Jim said, deciding to ignore Sulu's comment, "I'm goin' in." And with that he made to stalk forward, holding his hands up to his shirt and ripping the yellow fabric down the middle in one long and jagged tear.

"Why the hell did you need to do that?" McCoy squawked.

"I dunno." Jim paused and looked down at his bare chest as if realizing for the first time what he had just done. "It looks sexy I guess." He made to start forward again, but McCoy grabbed his arm.

"Wait, Jim, _wait,"_ he whispered, "Why don't you just stun the damn thing with your phaser? Then we could just walk around it—_very_ far around it—and get in the shuttle."

"Nah, tried that already. Just made it madder. And I don't want to kill it or anything," he replied with a shrug. He started forward again only to have McCoy renew the grip on his arm.

"Wait, _wait!_ What are you going to do?"

"I dunno," Jim said yet again, "Wrestle it or something awesome like that. You in, Sulu?"

Sulu nodded. "Heck, yes!" he whispered.

McCoy was starting to feel desperate. "You want to _wrestle_ it?" He said in shock. He opened and closed his mouth simply too horrified to speak. He was saved the need to further warn his enthusiastic colleagues, however, by the sound of a twig snapping behind them. The three of them turned to see a bright-faced Chekov, a beaming O'Reilly, and a disheveled Spock approaching them from behind.

"Spock!" Jim said in surprise, "What happened?"

Spock shot O'Reilly and Chekov a look before replying to Jim. "The creature pursued us down the slope, but I believe it lost our scent and followed the smell of the shuttlecraft instead. We have been observing its behavior, but it seems to be unpredictable and completely fickle," Spock reported.

"Why did you tear your shirt, Keptin?" Chekov asked, wide-eyed, completely oblivious to the exchange that had gone on between his two commanding officers.

"Believe me, don't ask," McCoy muttered.

Chekov looked from Jim's shirt to his own several times as if considering something. Then he reached up and ripped his own shirt down the middle as well, looking immensely pleased with himself.

"Okay, new plan," said Jim in undertone, pulling his phaser out. "We're all going to leap out and confuse it all at once. It'll get overwhelmed and hopefully run off. It doesn't seem like the brightest creature after all, and there are six of us, so it should work great."

"Yeah, Jim, that's a great idea," McCoy snarled, snatching the phaser away from the younger man and holding it out of reach above his head, "While you're at it, why doncha load up a gun and play Russian Roulette with it?"

Jim raised his eyebrows. "Why? Do you have a 19th century pistol on you?"

"You know, ze Russians inwented Russian Roulette!" Chekov interjected from behind, attempting to make his way between the two men.

"Yeah, that's something to be real proud of, there, kid," McCoy rolled his eyes, shoving Chekov back with his shoulder while simultaneously holding on to the sleeve of Jim's yellow command shirt to restrain him. "And that wasn't a suggestion, Jim, that was what I like to call sarcasm—now get back here before I take this phaser and shove it up your---aaah!"

McCoy stopped dead mid-threat when he realized with a sudden pang that the arm holding the phaser was currently buried elbow deep in something large and unpleasantly slimy. Looking up slowly, he saw the source of his discomfort: a vibrantly blue umbrella-sized flower hung directly above him and he had thrust his arm directly into the middle of it. Poisonous barbs from the plant leaked a foul smelling gelatinous substance on his hand that ran down his forearm with a feeling akin to cool egg whites. Extracting his arm and throwing the phaser up in the air with a yelp, McCoy stood up in full, grasping his infected arm with his good hand and swearing at the top of his voice.

"Goddammit, Jim, dammit, dammit, dammit! This is all your fault!" He howled, dancing on the spot. His arm was already so swollen so that it was nothing more than a useless club of a thing hanging limply from his shoulder. The sleeve of his uniform stretched around the distended skin, pushing it to the point of ripping the blue fabric. Rounding on Jim, he was about to give him an earful about hygiene and keeping safe and why certain captains should learn to keep their mouths shut and listen, when a firm hand closed on his shoulder.

"Doctor," Spock said softly, staring intently at something beyond McCoy's head, "I would suggest that you lower your voice immediately and back away slowly."

And with that ominous statement, the group turned as one to see the creature—finally alerted to their position by the racket, stalking steadily towards their position, yellow eyes flashing hungrily.

"Way to go, Tiger," Jim said absently standing up and patting McCoy on the arm, his gaze on the creature.

The creature charged and the six of them scattered all in different directions. The creature paused for a moment before choosing to go after Chekov, who had run into the open field, his arm pathetically flapping the entire way. Jim, Sulu, and Spock seeing this got out their phasers (Jim had retrieved his off the ground where it had fallen) and proceeded to shoot the creature over and over again, but it only served to distract the beast from poor Chekov. Lumbering around in confusion, it bore down on the three officers who resolutely stood their ground. O'Reilly stood in the shadows of the forest, lobbing rock after rock at the creature's thick skull to no effect.

McCoy stood on the edge of the forest, paralyzed. If he didn't do something and do something soon, his friends would be dead. But he was fresh out of ideas and could only watch helplessly for a moment.

It was then that McCoy realized in one brilliant stroke that he had the answer. Looking down at his belt, he pulled out the three extra-strength sedative hyposprays with his good hand. Each hypospray had five doses for a regular sized human being. Three full canisters would be enough. It had to be, or else he and everyone else were sure to be very short-lived. With his puffy hand fumbling on the dials, he set the hyposprays to maximum dosage on all three and then held them tightly in his hand, steeling himself.

McCoy then did one of the bravest and stupidest things he had ever done. He took a running leap and jumped onto the back of the bucking creature, latching onto its neck with his great club of a hand. It turned around and around in confusion, swiveling its head this way and that but unable to see the unexpected rider on its back. McCoy hung on for dear life as the creature roared and spun, getting progressively dizzier and dizzier. With his remaining strength he thrust the three sedatives into the mangy fur below the beast's ear and injected it all at once into the creature's bloodstream.

For one horrible moment, McCoy was sure that it hadn't worked and he had exposed himself to countless germs for no reason at all. The creature jumped and bucked in an attempt to throw its unwanted passenger off but McCoy held tight. Then the creature seemed to stumble. It rocked and swayed on its feet. In one motion, it gave one last half-hearted roar, and sank to the ground, knocked out cold.

McCoy tumbled off its back onto solid ground with a cry of relief, then jumped up again as the realization hit him that he had just clung to the back of a disease-infested, jungle-dwelling, alien space gorilla-cat with his hands and face buried in its dirty green hair for well over a minute. He went completely rigid hoping to God that rain would somehow miraculously come and wash away the solid layer of filth that now coated his entire body, but what he got instead was more human contact than he could manage as Chekov and O'Reilly piled hugs on him and Sulu clapped him heartily on his back. O'Reilly congratulated him on his "true Irish spirit" and Chekov stared at him in unadulterated admiration. But it was more than McCoy could handle. At the best of times he had a strict three-second only contact rule unless he was examining a patient and the wild hugging was doing nothing for his fear of germs.

"Get. Off. Me." he said tersely through gritted teeth. His crewmembers apparently recognized coming danger, because they disengaged from him faster than he thought possible. Jim approached him, and clapped him on the back, leading him towards the safe haven of the shuttle.

"Well, Bones," he said, "Ready to go home?"

For a moment, all McCoy could do was stare at the shuttle in horror.

Because Leonard McCoy had forgotten one crucial detail: if there was one thing he hated more than germs, parasites, spores, and alien gorilla-cats, it was flying.


End file.
